BMW judgment
The BMW ruling is a decision of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) from 2010, with which the BGH continued its case law on hourly rates when accounting for damage after a traffic accident.
First of all, he had confirmed in the Porsche judgment that even with a fictitious damage calculation, the hourly rates of a brand workshop can be applied in full. In the VW ruling , he allowed restrictions on this for vehicles older than three years. The BGH made a further exception to this in its judgment of February 23, 2010, the so-called BMW judgment (Az. VI ZR 91/09).
facts
In its regulation letter, the liability insurance listed three workshops that were located in the vicinity of the injured party, that were certified master workshops that were regularly checked by TÜV or DEKRA and that only used original spare parts. In addition, these workshops gave a three-year guarantee. However, the injured party settled on the basis of an expert opinion based on the prices of authorized workshops.
judgment
The Federal Court of Justice decided that in such a case the injured party had to explain why he was entitled to use the more costly repair option as a basis. For example, it could be important that the car was regularly serviced and repaired in the branded workshops or that the injured party demonstrates his / her interest in a repair by a branded workshop by submitting a repair invoice. The latter is of course not taken into account when accounting for fictitious repair costs.
The guiding principle of the judgment is:
- The injured party may refer the injured party as part of the fictitious claim settlement under the aspect of the obligation to mitigate damage within the meaning of Section 254 (2) of the German Civil Code (BGB) to a more favorable repair option of equivalent quality in an effortlessly and easily accessible "independent specialist workshop" if the injured party has no circumstances shows that make repairs outside the brand-specific specialist workshop unreasonable
